Don't you just know that Oscar Arias could take Hugo Chavez, and take him down hard, in the battle for the future of Latin America.
Chavez, the Venezuelan dictator-in-training, wants to spread his brand of Castroism.
Arias, the president of Costa Rica, wants to spread freedom, especially to the one place in the Americas where it is missing — Cuba.
Arias, a man with credibility to spare, has taken the lead among Latin American leaders in pushing for democracy in Cuba.
"As a Costa Rican, I am not giving up my dream of seeing the entire hemisphere living under democratic regimes," Arias said Saturday, after meeting with John Maisto, the United States ambassador to the Organization of American States.
Cuba was a major topic of discussion during a meeting in the Costa Rican capital of San José between Arias and Maisto, according to a story in the Nacion of Costa Rica, and republished at Cuba Libre Digital.
"There has to be a transition to democracy, but one that is authentic, and not a transition to another dictator or to a group of dictators," Maisto said.
That's what Arias, an opponent of the U.S. embargo on Cuba, has been arguing since the first week of August, after Fidel Castro transferred power to his brother Raúl.
Now is the time, in Cuba, for democracy, not more dictatorship.
Arias promised to again deliver that message at the Ibero-American Summit in Uruguay, which convenes Nov. 4.
Chavez gets all the ink and the air time for acting like a buffoon — albeit, a dangerous and wealthy buffoon — trying to inherit the Castro mantle.
While Arias only wants for Cuba what is found everywhere else in the Western Hemisphere — freedom and democracy.
There really is no contest.
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